Things You Don't Know
by cece2046
Summary: or "how to write a time travel story in less than 1500 words"


Forever grateful to my beta reynardinepttr. Real life saver.

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She was already gone when you woke up that morning. Her shampoo scent was still lingering on your pillow. Lying there on the bed with white sheets covering your lower half, you stared at a strand of hair left behind, brown with gold reflecting the sunlight, but you didn't pick it up.

Things you do know: she's not coming back. She didn't exactly say that, but she left a letter on the pillow. A piece of parchment folded in half with your name on it. You remembered the rustling sound beside you, the sound of friction between skin and sheets, the sound of her walking on the wooden floor with bare feet, and the other side of the bed that slowly became cold from midnight or early morning. You were half conscious or half dreaming, immersed in these tiny sounds, in the following silence, and in that little click when the door was closed.

Things you don't know: she's not coming back. She put the letter she composed earlier on the pillow. _Don't trust Wormtail._ She walked around quietly, putting on her knickers and bra and jeans, and fastened her belt. She picked up your Sex Pistols T-shirt from the floor, put it on, and sniffed at the collar a bit. She stood by the bed looking at you, shoes in one hand and wand in another, so she didn't have a free hand to reach out to you and brush over your forehead for a moment. She walked out of the room and closed the door with a little click. You didn't know she apparated to that cave, found a covert corner, disillusioned herself, sat down on a cold rock, and waited for Regulus Black.

Things you do know: you buried your fingers in her hair and forced her to face up to you the night before. Her expression was the same one she always got, like she could see the ending with just a glimpse. _What do you want? What the fuck do you want?_ you asked, just like hundreds of times before you asked _how do you know that? What're you laughing about? Where're you from?_ Questions without answers. Questions that have a start but never an end. Her hair tangled around your fingers with such strength that it could draw blood. _What do you want? What the fuck do you want?_ She was staring at you. _Love me,_ she said, _I want you to love me, but I don't have time anymore._

You silenced her with a searing kiss. _Shut up, woman. You've never said one pleasing sentence since I met you._ She smiled on your lips. _News flash, we're at war here. The moment you're pleased, you're dead._

Things you don't know: she was panting when she stuffed the Time Turner into her purse. She looked at the magic photos on the corridor walls in the safe house: the young Weasleys dancing at their wedding; the Prewett brothers making faces; Moody with a wooden leg but still with two normal eyes devouring Firewhisky and laughing. There's a group photo of the Order on the wall. James was standing beside you. He's just a teenager with high spirits and messy hair. Her fingers went from James' eyes of wrong colour, Lily's fire-like hair, to Remus' scars on his face, and stopped at the lifting corner of your mouth. She closed her eyes, imagining those moving scenes a long time ago or a long time later. Harry said he saw his parents in that mirror. Percy was shaking his brother, and Ron was kneeling beside them, and Fred's eyes stared without seeing, the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face. She raised her wand and whispered Obliviate. Looking directly at his father, Bill said, "Mad-Eye's dead." You sank backwards through the ragged veil hanging from the arch.

She made her choice at that moment.

Things you do know: it only takes one moment to make a choice. The 11-year-old you sat in front of the whole school with the Sorting Hat saying in your head, "Ahhhh, another Black." You knew it only took one moment to make a choice. Many people stood at the crossroad of life hesitating between left or right, but you never paused. You always knew what's right and what's easy and they're always the same for you. It only took one moment to choose Gryffindor. It only took one moment to be Remus Lupin's friend. It only took one moment to decide to be am Animagus. It only took one moment to join the Order. You dealt with all your life choices with the speed of light until you met her, the girl who appeared in the Order meeting out of nowhere, 18 or 19 years old, thin, with messy long hair and a pair of eyes that pierced you at the first sight. You wrenched her wand away, twisted her arms behind her, and pressed her whole body to the wall. This was your favorite way to disarm someone. Your every sense suddenly turned to highly sensitive mode near her. You can feel her slender arms and her body struggling with alarming strength and conflicting submissiveness simultaneously. Her hair has some kind of flower scent that you couldn't for the life of you distinguish. You heard her pained panting and whispering, "Sirius…" You turned your head to Dumbledore for orders, but your attention was on her biting her lower lip.

Things you don't know: predicaments with only one way out were her favourite. She liked to have no way but forward. She didn't like to hold a malfunctioning Time Turner in her hands with never-ending past and future except home stretching in front of her. She didn't like to repeat a war. She didn't like to participate in Order missions, because sometimes she saved someone who died last time but lost someone who would live otherwise at the same time. She didn't like to toss and turn at midnight, get up to get a cuppa, and see Harry's father and mother having sex in the kitchen, expediting the process of making Harry to face the unknown annihilation. She didn't like to meet you, who always looked at her with vigilance, talked to her to probe, and jumped up to contradict her whenever you were discussing strategies. She didn't like to have her buried fantasy and attraction and love and heartbreak unearthed and slapped in her face by destiny, since she didn't know how to face this huge irony at all. She didn't like to become friends with everyone so that she again acquired a whole new bunch of families who would be crushed by the war without making a sound. She hated to have all the choices in the world, yet every one of them was a time bomb with different explosive yield.

Things you do know: the Order found the evidence to convict Peter of being a traitor that day. You punched through a door. Regulus was taken to you by a Portkey with unknown sources. Your brother came back to you with a piece of Voldemort's soul when you thought you'd lost him forever. He was wet and exhausted, sitting on the floor. You kneeled down to give him a hug. You wanted to ask what happened, but for once in your life, you didn't have the courage.

You'll never meet her again.

END


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